Tag: Prison

Historian Heather Ann Thompson’s book on the 1971 Attica prison uprising details the government’s brutality, lies and propaganda, demonization of the poor, obstruction of justice and silencing of those who tried to tell the truth. She exposes the American blueprint for social control.

The late political philosopher Sheldon Wolin explicated the mechanisms of control and manipulation used by the powerful. But those who most need to read his work have been left in darkness by an academy that has turned its back on the oppressed and caters to the elites. (Pictured, Wolin and James Baldwin, right.)

If the government decides you are an “enemy combatant,” you cannot defend yourself in court. It’s a terrible precedent and a threat even to U.S. citizens. We should immediately release the alleged terrorist.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency skipped the standard public process of bidding and offered the Corrections Corporation of America a generous deal to build a massive detention facility for women and children seeking asylum.

Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, argues that the U.S. isn’t putting enough people behind bars. He ignores the fact that when ex-felons are allowed to reintegrate into society as productive, tax-paying citizens with voting rights, they are far less likely to reoffend.

Amnesty International described his release as “long overdue and undeniably just.” The three Louisiana prison inmates were placed in solitary confinement in April 1972 after the killing of a guard. The other two were released earlier.

As the clock counts down to the new year, another clock will continue ticking, counting the days, hours, minutes and seconds since May 23, 2013, the day President Barack Obama promised to free all those prisoners at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay who have been cleared for release.

The Intercept reports that the federal government’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reveals that “about 1 in 36 adults in the United States was under some form of correctional supervision at yearend 2014.”

Justice Antonin Scalia earned his stripes as the court’s loosest cannon for his remarks on Obamacare and same-sex marriage, while Justice Clarence Thomas was honored for making it through his ninth year without asking a single question during oral arguments.

The presidential candidate is continuing to prove he’s taking his role as an insurgent seriously; a writer ponders whether there is a difference between Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal; meanwhile, some people are in jail based on inaccurate crime lab results—a problem that is getting worse. These discoveries and more after the jump.

Since federal funding for prison education programs was eliminated in 1995, Eastern New York Correctional Facility has had one of the few U.S. programs granting college degrees to prisoners. Recently, it produced an underdog story that made headlines.

“If we’re going to constantly use mentally ill people to dodge conversations about gun control,” comedian John Oliver said angrily on Sunday’s episode of “Last Week Tonight,” “then the very least we owe them is a fucking plan.”

An Oklahoma appeals court has granted a reprieve for death row inmate Richard Glossip just hours before his scheduled execution. As Truthdig’s Bill Blum recently explained, “His case is the kind that should keep people of good conscience awake at night.”

A young black man who reportedly had mental health problems was found dead in jail in Portsmouth, Va., after spending almost four months behind bars without bail on suspicion of stealing groceries worth $5.

The “Last Week Tonight” host makes the compelling case for not only getting rid of mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug offenses, but for passing legislation that would allow existing prisoners to apply to have their sentences reduced retroactively.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Richard Glossip can be executed in September, despite the strong evidence of his innocence and the intense pain that Oklahoma’s injection cocktail is known to cause.